by D. C. Stone
“I know, Bari. Though things are different now, don’t you think? We’ve both changed.” And I don’t know if I can handle getting so close to you again, whispered unsaid in her mind. As she reached the wall of the pool, she turned her body and sat down on a ledge beneath the water, the movement bringing the level of fluid up to her neck. “What’s going on here, Bari? What’s happening?”
The difference in her was absolute, the normally confident woman he knew nowhere in sight and instead a shy female whose skin tinged pink from the heat of the water sat next to him. He shielded the smile that threatened to upturn the corners of his mouth as he took in the way she sunk down deeply into the water.
“Mackenzie, I feel a need to protect you and that means from myself as well as anyone else.” When they met originally, both were too young for anything more than a companionship born of a like situation, but as the years stretched by, he noticed the changes as Mackenzie blossomed into a young woman, each affecting him in a way no other ever had. He hadn’t lacked for companionship, had offers thrown to him often but hadn’t found anyone that did what she did for him. Stretching his arm out, his fingers brushed through her steam dampened hair as he spoke to her, her eyes still casting around the cave but not meeting his.
“Do you find me distasteful, Angel?” A feeling he hadn’t known hit him square in the chest, something akin to fear and he didn’t care for the way it caused him to second-guess himself. Maybe Mackenzie wasn’t as drawn to him as he thought. She had always found comfort in his arms, what if that was all she ever saw him as?
He reached over and tugged her off her seat to stand between the vee of his legs stretched before him. He didn’t pull her up close, but refused a retreat from her either. “Tell me, Mac, would you mind my touch on your skin?”
Her eyes fluttered closed, and she took an audible breath in before she opened her eyes and let it out slowly. Her gaze met and locked on his and as if on cue he watched and heard as her breathing sped up and her heartbeat accelerated.
“I don’t understand, Bari. How or why would you feel the need to protect me?”
His lips thinned, and he worked to find the right words. “Angel, you know about most of my life. What I dealt with in my childhood.”
“Which one?” she asked quietly.
“Before I was adopted. My father killed my mother, Mac. And I watched as it happened, saw the whole thing. I’ve never forgotten a moment of it, including the monster he turned into when it happened.”
Silence ticked by, the sound almost deafening.
“Hell, Angel.” He rolled circles along the outsides of her thighs, lost in thought. “He was who I’m told I am changing into.”
Mackenzie frowned. “I don’t think I understand. How can you be anything you don’t want to be?”
He started and then let out a sharp laugh. “When you put it that way, it sounds so normal. You’re correct though, Mac. But when you grow up with something like that, it’s sort of hard to believe you can’t be anything else.”
She stared at him for a few minutes, almost as if she were trying to peer into his mind. “Is this why you left?”
He couldn’t answer her. He didn’t have words. But apparently she saw it on his face. “Oh you stupid, stupid fool.”
Mackenzie gasped as he jerked her closer to his body, one of her arms falling to catch herself beside his head. He could feel the heat of her body through the water, and the temperature seared into his skin, making his flesh break out with perspiration.
“Stupid isn’t a word I would use for the way you make me feel, Mackenzie. I want you to touch me now, Angel. I don’t mind your touch. I never have. Ever.”
Her eyes avoided him again, and he fought with patience. He didn’t want to rush this with her. He needed her to be sure. She couldn’t look at him, kept her eyes trained on the hair flowing over his ear. They were too close. So close he could turn his head and set his lips to her like he had earlier. The insides of his thighs now clamped around her upper thighs with how close they were, and if he pulled her any closer, he knew what she had been feeling through cloth earlier would be directly on her skin. The thought caused his cock to pulse. She groaned next to him, and he stiffened, wanting more than anything to hear the thoughts in her head right now. “Why would you feel as though you need to protect me, Bari? You never answered the question.”
Her body shifted and pressed closer between his thighs. He moved his arms from their resting place on her hips and framed her face with his hands as his eyes burned into hers. “Why would I want to protect you? Do you not realize since the first day I laid eyes on you that you were mine? My responsibility to keep safe?” He noted the stiffening posture of her body, and his hands reached out to hold her where she was. “It wasn’t a damn difficulty, Mac. It was what I wanted to do.”
Done with talking, as it hadn’t seemed to work, he pulled her closer. His mouth met hers with a firmness that showed his resolved. She didn’t understand what she did to him, so the best way to explain it was to show her, to educate Mackenzie on how she affected him.
He caressed his hands over her slender arms, testing and molding each move of her muscles beneath the creamy skin that housed her strength. He dipped his head, lips skimming over hers before he laid them to her neck. “I have considered myself in favor that you allowed me to care for you, Angel.” His voice was low and strained. He understood the need to go gently, recognized his craving had been beating at him for years and she was just getting to understanding exactly what he felt for her, and that was on a small scale.
“Let me show you…” He spoke in a low tone, the sound not even echoing around the cave as he pulled her to him. His body temperature spiked as if he were on fire as she came reluctantly into his arms. He couldn’t make his length behave, couldn’t soften his need for her and instead tried to divert her attentions with his lips as he crushed them to hers.
She moved her arms and thrust her hands into his hair, her own mouth devouring his as he took hers. As her breathing quickened, she moved closer, as close as the position their bodies could move to without her lying on top of his lap. Her breasts pressed into him, and he groaned at the feel of those silken soft globes against his chest. Her nipples spiked and created an odd sensation, soft against hard, much like the differences in their bodies.
Her kisses grew in power, each of them almost like she couldn’t get enough, wanted more. He felt as if she conquered him. As she shifted, the water lapped at their skin like additional caresses as hands roamed over bodies. She groaned, and he captured the sound greedily with his mouth. He pulled her closer, as if it was even possible, and she grunted, then lifted a leg, setting it on one side of his hip. The other came up after, and he felt the brush of her strong thigh against his own.
Bari’s hands landed on her hips, and he urged her forward as she came up on him. The heat of her core scorched in comparison to the hot pool they already sat in. The head of his cock brushed against her silken folds, and she stiffened.
Bari recognized her trepidation and willed himself to go slower. He moved his mouth from hers and trailed a long line of kisses down her throat. He worked his lips over her skin, and she tilted her head back and moaned.
His sharp intake of breath was audible, breaths coming out in short harsh pants. Having Mackenzie so close and so bare overloaded his senses. He struggled to contain his control as he realized her exposure wasn’t much more over the last nine years than it had been under his protection. He stretched and afforded her a fuller view of his torso before his control failed.
“Sorry, Angel.” As much as he wanted to take things slow, to introduce her into touching him, he had fallen off an edge with no grip left. He crushed her to him, assaulted her mouth with his own as he plunged his tongue past her lips, his arms circling her waist. He didn’t hold her so she couldn’t move, but held her enough for her to understand that he meant to hold on to her. The taste of Mackenzie was like cotton candy melting over his tongue, ric
h and sweet, something he couldn’t get enough of. He cupped her face, pulling back to meet her eyes. “I am apologizing now….” His lips brushed against hers with care while his veins throbbed in impatience with the desire to have her. He gripped her hips crushingly, his fingers digging into the soft flesh as her hips shot up under his direction.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay, Bari?”
He gulped down air as he turned his head, Mackenzie overwhelming him as she had always done. Her soft question if he was okay brought him to concentrate on her green eyes.
“I won’t lie, Mac, I’m on fire for you. But I also won’t make you do something you are unsure off.” He sat stiff beneath her hands, on a teeter totter of what was best and what had to happen. He swallowed thickly and leaned forward to brush his lips to her forehead. No matter his intentions upon seeing her bared, he wouldn’t force her for any reason. He was giving her one time to escape him; one only or it would be done. He would show Mackenzie exactly what it meant to be cared for, to be claimed by him because his body was outweighing his mind over the matter. “You don’t know how you undo me, Angel, what you mean to me and not just because you are stunning.” He stopped talking and pressed his lips to her cheek, wishing like hell he had more to give her. That somehow he could find the right words.
She sat still above him, and he demanded his body not to move. She had full control, and the decision she would make here would change both their lives. Her arms moved slowly, sliding like silk over his heated skin, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, stayed like that for a few moments. He grazed his lips, just a soft touch, over her cheek.
Her fingers moved and intertwined into his hair. His breath hitched against her cheek as she turned her face toward his and closed her eyes. Her lips moved around, seeking his out.
Still, he sat silently, waiting on her to show him what she agreed to. Her lips found his and nibbled gently, soothing away the small nips with a rasp of her tongue. She shifted her body, and his erection settled in between their bodies, the length a silent demand pulsing in a steady beat against her stomach.
She broke off from her teasing play of kisses on his lips and ran her mouth down his face to the hard line of his jaw, suckling and nibbling her way down to the arch of his long neck. The feeling so divine, he groaned. Her skin rubbed against his as if she couldn’t get enough. Her lips rolled along his neck, and she gasped against his skin, then paused.
At this point his hands must have been bruising grips on her hips. His length brushed against her core as he rocked his hips up, his grip at her hips pulling her more tightly to him. Heat poured from her center, connecting with his length and eliciting a groan of bliss from him. He needed to taste her, needed to sample the sweetness of her skin and pulled her up to her knees, her body still straddling his. Her petite form rose from the water, drops of water racing down along her torso as the water sluiced off her. Leaning forward, he stopped a drop with his tongue, just below her chest, and traced the path the water had taken. Her shiver as his tongue neared her breasts was noticeable, and he cast his eyes up to hers, meeting her watchful stare. Keeping his ice blue eyes locked on her green ones, his tongue flicked over the tip of her breast, the flesh hardening into a taut peak. His hands kneaded the globes of her rear and the rake of her nails through his hair, against his scalp, bordered on a heady pleasure-pain combination.
As he drew the pebbled flesh into his mouth, he watched Mackenzie’s head thrust back as her body arched to afford him more access. He laved her nipple with his tongue before grazing a fang over the tip as he brought one hand around to tease her center. Her stiffened posture at the touch of his fingers quickly softened as he spoke soft words against the hollow of the throat, teasing her verbally as his fingers grazed over her center again before he parted her folds with his finger, slipping down toward her entrance, teasing at the opening before he pushed into her. He caught her gasp as his mouth covered hers, his tongue slipping past her lips to tangle with its mate.
As he pushed a finger inside of her, she stiffened slightly.
“I won’t hurt you, Mac.” His hand started to pull away, but she reached down between them and placed her own hand over his, her glazed eyes full of desire pulling back to meet his. “No. More, Bari…”
It was as if a dam broke and all the pent up hunger the two had been holding in unleashed. He pulled his hand back from her core and pressed two fingers inside of her, going exquisitely slow in the probing of her body. She tilted her head toward his and met his lips halfway, letting him conquer and seduce her mouth. He moved his other hand up, grazing her hip, and past the swell of her breast. He explored and tempted her with touches, whispered her name in a groan and sigh in pleasure as she welcomed his touch.
His fingers set on a steady pressing rhythm inside her. With movements growing frenzied, finally her body arched and she called out in release. Her cries echoed along the walls of the cave, and he drank them all greedily in. She rode his hand on her own, tossed her head back and cried out his name.
As the last cry ran out of her mouth, she pulled back and met his hungry blue gaze. His fingers slipped free from her body and as he lifted his hand from the water, distantly he heard each droplet being returned to the pool from his dripping hand. It was as if his world narrowed, everything centering on this woman in his arms.
His knuckles grazed her face almost like he was lost in a wonderful treasure, something simply amazing. “Mackenzie...” Her name flowed from his lips, and she shuddered, her eyes glazing over and darkening with a renewed desire. His other hand wrapped around her hip and drew her closer, and he lifted his own hips, asking a silent question with his length probing her core. Love demanded gentleness and giving this untouched portion of him would be a simple joy.
His fingers dug into the soft flesh at her hips as she lowered down, his erection pressing into her. Her sharp intake of breath had his eyes snapping up, searching hers.
“It’s okay, Bari. It’s just been so long.” He kept his eyes on her face, watching for any pain he might be causing as he slowly urged her to take him more fully. Mackenzie’s frame tensed once more, and he knew he needed to keep her focused on the moment. He lapped at one nipple before paying equal attention to the other, teasing them both until the peaks hardened into angry red nubs from his play. He looked up from beneath his lashes as he sucked in deeply, Mackenzie’s body shifting over his as pleasure washed over him. He took that moment, with her caught in the flood of sensations ruling her body and popped his hips up as he pulled down with his hands on her hips, settling himself to the hilt. He stilled his movements to allow her body to adjust to his invasion.
“Angel, are you okay?” He held his breath, and his entire body sat rigid, a true test of control as he wanted to pound into her under the onslaught of demand his body made. A myriad of emotions crossed her face before she moved above him, her body sliding up over his and back down, taking him in once again.
“I think so, Bari.”
“Christ.”
She took control, used his body to create pleasure for them both. His head fell back as he moaned out a low response.
“That’s it, Angel. Just like that. Oh fuck.” Her body rocked over his, continued to take him in, only to release him to his tip before diving back down, sheathing him inside her, her walls clenching at him and causing anticipation to shoot up his spine. With each stroke her center enveloped him in, his impending release built until he felt her body clench on to his, his name called out from her again as her walls fluttered around his length causing his climax to join hers, bathing her walls with his hot seed.
“Mac…” His breaths came out in short pants of air as he rested his forehead to hers. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her to him as he reveled in the afterglow of their joining. He had loved Mackenzie in one fashion or another since their first meeting, his adoration for her changing as they grew and his feelings matured. All paled to the way he felt in that moment, so fully connected to her physic
ally, mentally, and emotionally as if this joining changed things forever.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Several hours later she lay draped over Bari’s body, his light snores echoing around the cave walls. Her body sated, filled with what had been hours of discovery into pleasure. She chewed on her bottom lip in thought as her eyes watched the entrance to the cave. While she held no regrets about where they had taken things and with where they were, her mind and heart couldn’t help but wonder if they would ever have the happy ever after she hoped for. Her life, filled with so much pain and anguish for so long, built her into being a reasonable woman, and she always pushed away the thoughts of ever finding a prince charming or even a happy ending. If she died tomorrow, she knew—as she listened to the strong thump, thump, thump of his heart—that she would die happy. Bari had become a part of her life at such a young age and even then, it wasn’t until recently that she realized just how much a part of her heart he was. He had set up house, stored himself away and only now did she realize that she had been delivering mail to him on a constant basis, telling him to stay put within the deepest part of her soul.
He shifted and his arms tightened around her before she heard his breathing become steady again. As much as she loved the idea of settling in for another cozy day wrapped up in the possession of Bari, she knew they were being hunted and her mind was in constant worry over her son … their son.
Closing her eyes, she let the rhythm of Bari’s breaths and his heartbeat lull her into sleep.
Sometime later she popped open her eyes and found Bari smiling above her.
“What are you smiling at, Bari?”
His smile broadened. “I am smiling because I felt like it.” He rolled to a sitting position and tugged on his leathers and boots before donning his shirt. Standing, although bent over due to the low ceiling of the cave, he gathered the remaining items and secured them to him before moving to the mouth of the cave. Mackenzie dressed and joined him, her slender fingers twining with his as she came to stand at his side.